Dig Two Graves
by NaaraSallem
Summary: Loki lets go of Thor's hammer and falls onto a mysterious planet. The ruler, Thanos, may claim to want to help Loki in his newfound quest to destroy and enslave humanity, but Thanos and his children, Nairi and Thane, have a different plan for Loki entirely. (Takes place between Thor and Avengers).
1. Preemptive Strike

Loki was falling. The great, undefeatable god of trickery was falling into what would certainly be his downfall. The cold leather of Thor's hammer slipped out of his fingers while he felt the last of his fortune leave him too. Loki couldn't keep holding onto Thor, he would rather keep his pride. He'd rather be known as the god that fell to his death than the god that gave in.

Actually, he'd just like to be remembered.

Loki saw the pride in his father's eyes as he fell, but he didn't get the sense that that was for him. It was for his fair-haired son. The son that tried to save his brother's life despite all that the brother did to ruin him. Yet again, Loki felt a pang of jealousy for his brother. His wonderful, _saintlike_ brother. The only thing he had done wrong was a preemptive strike against those who would soon attack his future kingdom. It was reckless, but it wasn't disgraceful.

As soon as Odin banished Thor, Loki was convinced he was in the clear. He would swoop in and take the kingdom for his own. His people would love him, and Loki would have everything he ever wanted.

But somehow… _somehow_ Thor survived his ordeal in Midgard. And right from under Loki's feet he pulled out the rug, landing Loki on his ass while his brother took back the love of Asgard, his people, and the approval of his parents.

Loki couldn't stand the thought, and he tried to clear his mind of everything. Of all of his short comings. He tried to think about where he could be falling. He was much too scared to open his eyes, but he would never admit it. Especially not to himself. Loki was trying to pretend that he was going to sleep, trying to spare his pride.

But the thoughts of his brother came back to his mind, but they were different this time, they weren't jealous or reserved. He didn't feel weak anymore, suddenly he felt angry. Angry at Thor, at his father, his mother. He was angry as everyone who rejected him. They all rejected him because of his angelic brother.

He searched his mind for what his brother loved most. Then it hit him; Thor loved Midgard, filled with silly little spineless humans. And as his beautiful, wonderful, terrible idea hit him, so did the rocky planet he crashed into.

But it was different now. Loki was no longer scared to open his eyes, and when he did he saw yellow, murky clouds that reeked of sulfur, and two black figures above him that wouldn't quite come into focus. Behind them were two horse shaped objects, and to Loki's disappointment he lost his strength, and gave into the sleep that he so longed for.

* * *

Loki awoke in a dark cell. It was small, without even a window for him to look out of. The only light was through the crack under the door and a candle lit far above his head, hanging from the dark ceiling. He put his ear to the ground and attempted to look under the crack of the door. All he saw was a grey floor and a door directly opposite his. Footsteps however brought Loki scrambling to assert a cool dominance over the situation. But he didn't need to do this, it was only a tray of slop being pushed under the door. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed tentatively. Not smelling anything particularly terrible he dipped his finger in and tasted it. _Yugh!_, he thought. This unappetizing paste they called food was like nothing he had ever had in Asgard, the only thing it tasted like was the floor of Thor's bedchambers in Asgard; Thor had dared him to lick it one time when he was a small child. He pushed it away, and laid down on the cold floor. What could have been a day later or ten minutes, Loki heard footsteps coming towards him.

The door opened and Loki was blinded with more light, "Get up." The voice rough and authorative. Loki stood up immediately.

"Let's go." The man pulled him up by his arm, squeezing a little too hard for comfort. The guard, clad in silvery black armor and a black hood, pulled him into the hallway. Loki felt as if he were in an underground compound; the light was harsh and there were no windows to the outside. Six guards came to flank Loki, but he refused to be contained like some sort of animal and acted quickly, pushing the two guards on his left and right into the walls of the hallway. The two behind him grabbed his arms and he turned to kick them in the shins with his hard boots. They fell to the ground and the two in front of him, now recovered, grabbed him from behind and shoved him into the wall. Loki's face pressed against the concrete. The four guards stood up and pointed their weapons at him. The weapons were a strange mix of swords and strange looking firearms. The guard that pulled him out of his cell had a staff.

Loki focused the magic inside of him to make snakes come out of the guards' boots and gloves. They writhed out of the soft leather as if they were angry. Some snakes were rattling their tails. The guards pulled off their gloves and kicked off their boots, some yelling. He still couldn't see any of their faces. Loki stood laughing at the scene of the chaos. One guard even ran off. Loki wondered whether or not they'd ever seen a snake before.

"Get up, everyone! It's just a trick, get your shit together." The guard that seemed to have the most control, the one that initially retrieved Loki, pulled him closer. As he did this, the snakes disappeared.

He led Loki into a room to his left and stood him in front of a man leaning back in his steely grey throne. It was so uniform and had such clean edges that they disappeared into the grey wall behind it. The man had to be at least six and a half feet tall, and his skin appeared to be hewn of stone and his eyes were a vivid blue.

"I believe that introductions are in order, I am Thanos, king of the moon Titan and this planet known as Patea." Thanos said.

"I am Loki, of Asgard."

"Yes, I am aware. What brought you here?"

"I fell off of my planet," Loki said.

"Explain." Thanos growled calmly.

"Well, I fought my brother, fell off of a collapsing bridge made of rainbows, landed here," he said with a devilish smile that irritated Thanos.

"What was that back there?"

"What do you mean?"

"The snakes? My guards running? Explain that." Thanos glared at Loki, but Loki refused to squirm, something that he would have bet few people were able to do.

"The guards running from them was their fault, you should probably have better people protecting you, they were easily startled. The snakes, those were for fun. Simple magic, that's all." Loki stated.

Thanos frowned at Loki, and motioned for his guard to escort Loki back to his cell. As Loki walked back, this time with no guards but the one, he saw three slits following the lines of his cheekbones on an otherwise humanoid face.

Before Loki could see anything else on the guard's face he was pushed back into his cell. Now there was a pillow on the floor. He laid his head down on it and slept for the first time in what felt like forever.


	2. Like a Scorpion

Nairi was running a solo desert patrol when a falcon landed on a rock ahead of her. It clearly wasn't a common falcon, as It had a Patean Seal marked on its beak; a red and silver throne, much like Thanos', resting on a crown, appearing to crush the seat under its weight. Nairi gracefully slid off of her buckskin horse, her feet crunching the reddish brown gravelly rocks beneath her, and pulled off a small scroll attached to the leg.

Patea certainly had technology for faster communication, but Thanos, the elected ruler of the small planet, favored subtle theatrics over instant gratification.

The scroll read in her father's neat but harsh all-capitals writing:

_NAIRI, _

_ I ASK YOU RETURN FROM YOUR PATROL IN THE SOUTHERN DESERT AT THIS MOMENT. I WILL SEND OUT A REPLACEMENT PATROLMAN, BUT I NEED YOU IN THE WAR ROOM. YOUR BROTHER AND FAOLAN HAVE BEEN CALLED BACK AS WELL. THE MAN YOU FOUND IN THE DESERT HAS GIVEN ME AN IDEA. THOUGH HIS HOSTILITY APPEARS TO BE A PROBLEM, HE WILL PROVE TO BE VERY USEFUL IN COMING TIMES. I ASK THAT YOU MAKE HASTE. _

_ FROM,_

_ YOUR FATHER, RULER OF PATEA, AND FIRSTBORN SON OF A'LARS, THANOS_

At seeing her father's full and formal title, she laughed. She knew how unstable, powerful, and dangerous her father was, and yet she couldn't keep herself from having that reaction. Despite being the cold, stoic Titan that he was, he never failed to be theatrical, even with his daughter.

And yet, Nairi couldn't bring herself to ignore her father, even if it were for just a few extra hours on the surface. Her father lived in a compound underground, and despite its connections to the Oasis that lay beneath the rocky, barren surface of the planet, she truly despised being in that place. She didn't understand how her father stayed shut up in there all day to attend to his official business. He hardly ever rode his humongous wingless dragon anymore. The last time Nairi checked it was just roaming around and hunting in the Oasis.

Nairi, resigned herself to going back to the compound (Thanos insisted that they call it the Tower, but it was only a glorified compound). It truly was upsetting that Nairi had to go back. Today Patea's skies were dark and stormy. No rain were to come from the brown coloured clouds, those storms existed only in the Oasis, but instead lightning crackled through the air like a whip and thunder clapped. But the storm was far off and the thunder was barely audible.

Nevertheless, when Nairi pulled herself up on her buckskin, the hair on her arms stood on end. She could feel it press up against her leather armour, and she jumped each time she felt the thunder. As she pulled the horse into a gallop, yelling through the ever growing wind, a sandstorm grew off in the distance.

It was only about a mile and a half back to the compound, but Nairi was nervous about whether or not she could make it. Her buckskin was fast, one of the fastest in the kingdom, but she had never put his skills to the test quite like this. Though at this point she was doing quite well. If she could keep up this speed, which she guessed had to be around forty five miles an hour, she would outrun the storm.

But it was gaining ground, and as Nairi tried to make headway, she began to fear for her life. It was only when the compound, visible by the Patean flag and a raised concrete block sticking out of the ground three feet high and eighty feet across and wide, that she began to feel the thunder and lightning creep up on her.

Nairi pulled herself off of the horse and kicked the flagpole as hard as she could manage. The guard knew she was on a patrol, and hopefully were aware of her imminent return. If Nairi liked the idea of risking, she could have ridden another quarter mile north, and taken the entrance that she didn't have to wait for clearance for, but Nairi felt she wouldn't have made it.

The storm gained on Nairi, and she was truly thankful that the compound began to rise from the ground until it was tall enough that it could tower over Nairi and her horse. A chunk of the concrete cracked and pulled inward until there was a black opening. She walked through, her horse following closely behind.

The compound closed shut behind her, blocking out the burgeoning storm. She felt herself sink into the earth silently.

A light shone through into the pitch black room and a door opened. A guard walked in, not wearing his mandatory hood and armour. Nairi assumed he was off duty. His face was pale and he had three parallel slits on his cheekbones underneath a set of unnervingly green eyes. Nairi found Pateans to look rather like humans, minus the eyes and slits.

They had more of the incisions on their lower back, chest, and ankle, but none of these were visible at the time, except for the star-shaped pattern barely visible at the top of the guard's chest.

"Nairi, welcome back," the guard, Callan, smiled at Nairi warmly. "Your father is waiting for you in the war room. I'll take your horse, you may want to hurry."

She nodded at Callan, who lead her saddleless buckskin away from her. Pateans rode bareback always, the only exception being truly long journeys.

Nairi rushed through the compound to reach her father, climbing ever deeper, trying to nudge her way through the marching soldiers. Her father always kept the place teeming with those that could protect him, though in Nairi's personal opinion, Thanos could kill every soldier, guard, man, woman, and child that lived in this compound and then some.

Nairi pushed her way into the war room, the wood and steel doors closing loudly behind her. Her brother, Thane already stood there, and smiled happily when he saw her.

Her father wasn't looking at her, instead his nearly seven foot tall frame was facing a large window looking out over the Oasis, a large forest of sorts that stretched off into the distance where it changed into plains, then to mountains and rivers and jungles and endless moors. The Oasis stretched the entire planet underground. There were quite a few entrances to the Oasis on the surface, but the involved a long trek across desert to even get to, then an even longer trek downwards.

All of the population that wished to be ruled by Thanos lived here, and except for a few rebellious camps that were weaker than a dying mouse, it was most of the planet's hundred million person population.

"Hey, Nairi," said Thane devilishly, almost like he was about to pull a prank. His smile was as big as ever and it grew when he saw Faolan, his best friend, enter.

Faolan came to stand by Nairi, nodding at her solemnly. Faolan was her betrothed, and despite her father's approval of him, out of respect for the Titan he showed little affection for her. Faolan was Patean, and being so, he had the slits and bright green eyes of other Natives. He had brown hair and a brown beard that Nairi relentlessly bugged him about due to the ease of which someone could grab it and pull him down, hard, in battle. Faolan just ignored her, he was Captain of the Guard, so he refused to give the one distinguisher from him and the rest of the guards away. He wore armour quite like Nairi's, with dark brown leather pants and a silver breastplate. Faolan however, carried a black staff that carried a greyish runestone in it, not Nairi's prized Makaber Steel hookswords, respectively named Riesig and Exitus.

"I had an audience with are prisoner two hours ago," Thanos announced, "Despite his hostility-"

"He attacked me and my men," Faolan cut in.

"Silence!," Thanos roared as he turned around to look at Faolan, Nairi, and Thane.

It was now that Nairi could see the resemblance between her and her father and brother. They all had the same skin, a rocky texture, with little fissures stretching out all over her and her brother's bodies. Their mother had been a Midgardian so they retained at least a little normality, but despite that concession, they were both taller than most, Nairi at least two inches taller than Faolan, and Thane two inches taller than Nairi, who was a good 6' were both incredibly strong and graceful fighters, though Thane had a penchant for healing that supposedly came from their mother. She had supposedly been a nurse on earth.

Nairi's skin was a dark chocolate colour, lighter than her black hair, and darker than her amber eyes. Her brother had the same colouring as her, but his face was kinder and softer. He had a talent with people that Nairi never seemed to possess; sadly, she took after her father, an oversize monstrosity with a fascination with death and a talent with making it come about.

"I was speaking," Thanos continued. "As I was saying, despite Loki's hostility, he appears to be an asset if groomed for the right task."

"What is this right task, father?," asked Nairi, careful to wait for three seconds of silence before speaking, making sure that she wasn't going to interrupt him.

"I have yet to decide, but I'm sure it will be spectacular," Thanos grinned with all of the possibilities, "Since Loki appears to be staying with us for quite a long time, we must move him to a larger room."

"Nairi, I ask you do this for me. Go and fetch him and bring him to the Northwest corridor. I know you are stronger than Faolan's men," Faolan frowned at Thanos' jab, "and you appear to be impervious to magic, rather like me. Go now."

Thanos waved them all out, Nairi following behind Thane and in front of Faolan. As soon as they left, Thane ran off to go on a patrol. Faolan pulled her over to him outside the door. "Don't get any snakes in your boots," Faolan grinned.

"Is that what happened to your men? Believe me, the Asgardian has no chance of getting anything in my boots."

"He better not, because if he does I will put a sharp object in places other than his boots," Faolan kissed Nairi on the cheek, and began to walk down the hallway, opposite where Nairi was going.

Nairi turned away from Faolan but yelled back to him, "I can take care of myself, but have fun putting your sharp object in Loki's body!"

Faolan snorted, "Thank you for the _oh-so-subtle_ innuendos!"

Nairi ran to her next objective: Loki.

When she reached his cell, she undid the simple but enchanted latch and let the harsh light shine on Loki's face.

"Up and at 'em, darling," Nairi told the grumbling and moaning body lying on a sleepy heap on the cold stone floor.

The man pulled himself up to stand in front of Nairi. "Are you my new guard? If so, I have a feeling I'll be enjoying your company more than theirs." Loki glanced downwards at Nairi's body, obviously trying to get under her skin.

Nairi however did not let anyone get under her skin. She simply smiled at Loki, grabbed his armoured arm, and began pulling him along the hall.

They walked along silently, Loki glancing sidelong at her every few seconds, smiling like the devil he was.

"Has anyone ever told you you're quite pretty," he told Nairi, clearly another ploy, "Almost like a gentle, harmless dove, or perhaps a swallow."

Nairi felt like she should take a swing, but she remembered what her father said about his magic, and how we would try to trick her. She tried to use every sense she had, every instinct she possessed, and with that she felt another presence to her rights, and an absence of one to her left, where she held Loki. She knew that that was impossible, and so came to the conclusion that Loki was actually on her right and not her left, and was waiting until she turned and went after the false god.

To try out her theory, Nairi punched into the air on her right, and was very pleased when her fist, which had silver brass knuckles on it, came into contact with a face. False Loki disappeared on her left and appeared in all of his now heavily bleeding glory on her right. Nairi pushed her forearm against his neck and returned his now absent devilish smile.

"Exactly how pretty am I again?"

Loki and Nairi walked in silence the rest of the way to Loki's new quarters. Before Nairi shut him in there with just his thoughts, he finally replied to her, "Pretty like a scorpion."

The door shut behind Nairi's retreating form.

**So please comment and favorite and other things amongst that. I'm writing this with a friends who will be writing for Loki and Thor. I will be writing for Thanos and Nairi. We will be posting every Saturday, and next Saturdays point of view writer is Thanos. YAY! I'm so excited to write this, especially now that I just saw Thor: The Dark World today. So, I will speak to you guys next week! (Also, I'd just like to add that I Had Me a Girl by The Civil Wars is the song I listening to while writing this chapter so take that as you will).**


	3. Revenge on Realm

The door shut behind Thanos' children, both biological and surrogate, and he sat down heavily on his chair. Unlike every other flimsy chair in the kingdom, it did not bend under the pressure of his body, nearly a thousand pounds. Thanos took long breaths, worrying about the state of his kingdom.

Thanos had always been adept at the fine art of exploitation, and now, with Loki the fallen god, he had a prime opportunity. Yet he couldn't quite seem to grasp any idea. They were there, absolutely, but they bobbed out of sight whenever Thanos was about to latch on to any of them.

He stood up abruptly and threw his chair against a wall, taking no care to prevent it from shattering the pane of glass protecting his war room from the Oasis. When the glass shattered, he felt a rush of hot, muggy air wash over his stone skin.

"Father!," Thanos heard Nairi cry out from the threshold. She rushed over to look out the window. "Are you an idiot? Now the whole kingdom can break into the Compound! They won't even have to break a window since you've done that for them, they can just prance right in!"

"Nairi, unless you plan on giving me some life-changing advice on how I should use our new _guest_ to our advantage then please leave this room immediately. I can't for the life of me think of any way to use Loki."

Thanos' daughter paced around the room's centermost table, a humongous map the showed the entirety of the planet, with little markers around it showing where each of Thanos' troops were stationed. She pulled herself onto the table, sitting Indian style, taking care not to let her combat boots disrupt the careful configuration of regiments. She was sure, however, she was sitting on the Thirty-ninth platoon.

"I think I have an idea," she said, taking care to keep her voice quiet and respectful. "Loki is intelligent, maybe too intelligent, but he is proud and vengeful. If we give him means to take revenge, we will have full use of him."

Thanos turned to her, his steely eyes showing no emotion, but his mouth curled into an ugly, twisted smile. He picked up a copper coin that represented the Releight Calvary and turned it over his knuckles just like Faolan did whenever he gambled. "How shall he take revenge?"

Nairi pushed herself off of the table and lithely crossed over to the window, shifting over all of the glass and sitting on the ledge that dropped into the Oasis. She looked into the endless mess of jungle that stretched into the distance. It went on for twelve leagues before it morphed into a canyon, then desert, then plains, then forests, then, for the largest portion of the planet, moors. Nairi had never been farther than the canyons; it was unsafe for royalty to cross the Oasis, not for an abundance of carnivorous wildlife, but murderous smallfolk paid by the rebels.

"Tell him that you wish to help him take revenge on Asgard."

Thanos snorted, "Asgard is near impenetrable, and we have nowhere near the numbers that would be needed to sack the city. What about Midgard? I haven't visited there in nearly two-hundred years, but they can't be too much more developed than they were then. They had less than a billion humans, and even then they were disease-ridden and their technology was nearly nonexistent." He grabbed a pitcher of wine that sat on his desk and poured himself and Nairi a glass.

Nairi accepted and drank, "Midgard's population is well over seven billion and growing. Their technology is so powerful that with two bombs they could obliterate their entire planet. They could obliterate Patea if they so choose."

Thanos drank deeply and poured himself some more, wishing he got more of a buzz from the dry liquid. "We could have the Other help us, he has quite the army. But even so, why would he want to destroy Midgard?"

"Thor, his brother, is the one he wants revenge on, and Thor apparently loves Midgard. Destroy it and you have destroyed Thor."

Now Thanos was pleased, so pleased in fact, that he felt like rewarding Nairi. "Nairi, for your excellent idea, I want to give you a payment. I need to be sure that Loki is able to actually take over a planet, so I would like you two to capture a rebel camp."

Nairi stood up, facing Thanos with anger in her eyes, clearly not appreciative of the penance Thanos was giving her. She walked over to him, fuming. Thanos would have none of her disobedience, "You will accept my favor or you will become his trainer until such time as he becomes able to take a planet. Well actually, you'll be his mentor anyway, but there will be consequences, I can assure you." Thanos' eyes flashed with malice, "You would not disobey your father _and_ king, would you?"

Nairi shook her head, her eyes low with fear.

"Good! Then I shall have him brought to me and I shall tell the fallen god the news. Tell a guard to bring him on your way out. I will see you off tomorrow morning at dawn when you and Loki ride to the rebel camp."

Nairi shut the door haughtily behind her, but Thanos took no notice, he was too busy thinking of the glory he would gain when he took Earth for himself when Loki was done with all of the hard work.

While Thanos waited for Loki he flipped the coin over and over again until it was bent from the crushing force of his hands.

When the god let himself into the room he was silent and dressed in greenish armour. His hair was neat and slicked-back and he looked as dangerous as ever. Thanos was not scared of him though. "I have good news for you, Little God. I have decided to help you take revenge on Thor"

"Really?," Loki asked in his calm, Asgardian accent. "How do you know I want revenge? How do you know I want revenge on Thor?"

Thanos ignored the god's question, it was best to keep his secrets a secret. "Common knowledge. I will enlist the Other and his alien army to help you take over Midgard. Asgard would be much too costly and we still would not prevail. Midgard is far easier and humans are Thor's precious people. It would be only too easy to enslave them all."

"I like your plan, but in my experience, help always comes at a price. What do you want?"

"Tomorrow my daughter will ride off to a rebel camp and attempt to sack them. Sending many men would attract suspicion and make it difficult to capture the rebels, but if it is two people, it would be easy. Besides, the best warrior on the planet, other than me of course, and the god of trickery. The insurgents will be dead in minutes."

Loki smiled, "Delightful, but hand me your coin. I want to leave this up to chance."

Thanos tossed the coin over and Loki caught it deftly. He flipped it high up into the air, letting the sound ring out ominously. He caught it and slammed it on the back of his hands. "Call it," he told Thanos.

"Tails."

Loki removed his hand from the coin. The copper shone brightly, "Well, Your Grace, I will ride with your daughter at dawn."

Loki smiled happily and Thanos waved him out of the war room, absolutely delighted.

Now he just had to contact the Other.

**So thank you for reading! I will be posting late Saturday night or early Sunday morning most of the time so expect it then. I'm sorry for my lack of posting the last two Saturdays, both my friend and I had crazy weeks because of our mutual participation in theatre. Please feel free to comment and tell me what you think! Next week will be either Thor or Loki, probably Loki. :) **


	4. Fifty Seven

It was dawn. Loki could feel it; feel the hot Patean sun rising and warming the air. He wished it wasn't dawn, the mischievous god had gotten no sleep. He'd spent the night fantasizing about his revenge. He couldn't believe his luck, and despite his instincts telling him not to get too excited, Loki was truly ecstatic. Until he remembered the duty that he owed to Thanos now.

His stomach growled; he hadn't eaten anything in the last 24 hours. Loki fell into a stupor, not exactly asleep, but instead flipping the coin and watching it twirl in the air, reflecting the harsh light like swords reflected the sun. Occasionally, his eyes would blur and cross, but he tried to stay awake. He felt weak. The planet had taken its toll. Sure, Nairi had brought him to his own room with a proper bed and real plumbing, but it was no palace, and he hadn't been allowed outside of it without being called. Nairi had dropped off a book the night before, after he had been returned to his chambers. It was called _The Planet of Deception: Patea_. He had read it the whole way through, despite it being heavier than a shield and twice as thick. It went in detail describing the history and geography of Patea. Sadly, Loki found it terribly boring.

Loki was about to have flipped the coin fifty seven times when his door open. Loki scrambled up to see the guard from Loki's night in the cell, recognizable only by his threatening-looking staff. He had his hood down this time, and Loki got to see his bearded face. The god was actually quite appalled by the slits on the guard's cheeks and chest. He had never quite seen anything like it.

"Hey, you awake?," the guard was obviously talking about the bags underneath Loki's eyes and their inability to focus on his face. Loki attempted to nod. "All right, good. I'm gonna take you to the armoury, Nairi's goin' to help you find some stuff and you two are going to get some breakfast. After that you two are out of here."

Loki had a few choice words for the amount of contractions that the guard had used in his speech, but he figured it was best not to tell him, the man did have a weapon after all.

The two walked in silence until Loki asked the guard's name. "My name's Faolan Bolton, I'm Sentry Commander." Faolan held out his hand to Loki and smiled. The god found himself liking this man, he was easygoing and happy; so unlike most everyone that Loki knew.

Faolan stopped suddenly and opened the door to their right, leading the two into a cavernous room that had every sort of weapon imaginable hanging from the walls. Guns, swords, longbows, crossbows, blowguns, anything that anyone could ever want. There was even food laid out on a wooden table. Nairi was devouring what looked to be three whole pound of bacon, two apples, one orange, and what looked to be a pig's heart.

"What the hell are you eating?," Loki asked, disgusted with the eating of the entrails.

Faolan closed the door behind him and Loki and walked around the table to sit down next to Nairi, who was kicked back in a chair. "Ha! Tourists. It's a Patean tradition, you're supposed to eat one when you need luck. Nairi's not technically Patean, but she really likes the tradition.

"Well by all means, please share. I'd rather not eat a heart though." Loki said looking at the table of food in the center of the room. Nairi overhanded a banana at him that Loki caught with ease. Faolan tossed a leather pouch filled with liquid at him. Loki scarfed down the banana and opened the pouch. He drank until he realized it wasn't water, it was red wine. "Little early for alcohol, isn't it?" Nairi and Faolan ignored him, so Loki decided to drink; they probably had a reason for it.

"Get some weapons, you're going to need them." Nairi gestured at the wall and loki strode over to it. He couldn't wait to get his hand on some steel. He ran his fingers over knives, swords, guns, and bows. Eventually he decided on hidden knives that were attached to a lightweight gauntlet that wrapped around his arm. He could hide it under his sleeve. As well as that he took a basic longsword. Nairi walked up to him with a black leather sheath and fastened it around his waist. Loki smiled at her, trying to be seductive. Nairi laughed at him and stomped on his feet, clearly not impressed.

"Are you sure you don't want any other weapons?," Nairi asked him, he was pretty underdressed. Loki just nodded.

Nairi decided that she would lead by example. She walked over to the wall and pulled down a break action shot gun and slung that around her back as well as a long bow. She as always had her handcrafted hookswords and concealed knives. Not hidden in her sleeves, as Loki's were, but hidden in her tan jacket. "You may want to change," Nairi told him, "That'll be hot, and it's not very good camoflauge." Nairi was talking about Loki's green and black get-up, which, while undeniably fabulous, was incredibly impractical. "I'll be okay," he told her, trying to be reassuring.

"Okay then, we're all ready. Let's go."

Faolan, Nairi, and Loki all walked down the hall together, Nairi and Faolan in the front talking about something in Patean, not the English that they'd been speaking before; Loki in the back, feeling a little dejected. They reached the stables – a bright and open room filled with many horses. "Pick one," Nairi told Loki. He instantly zeroed in on her Buckskin. He was reached out to touch her.

"What do you think you're doing?" Nairi walked over and stood between him and the horse.

"I'm getting a horse like you told me to," Loki reached for the horse again. Nairi slapped his hand away, agitated.

"That's my horse. You'll take that one." She pointed to a black Andalusian. It was a large horse, and Loki knew it wouldn't be nearly as fast as Nairi's, but it'd do.

"Where's the saddle?" Loki asked looking around the stall.

"We don't use saddles, only for incredibly long journeys. We only have to travel about twenty miles," Nairi answered. Loki walked over to the horse. The horse whinnied, its eyes wide and scared. Loki walked closer and the horse moved back. He reached for it and the horse reared up and kicked its front legs.

"Damn it! What did you do?" Nairi ran over to the horse, grabbed its mane and began to make shushing sounds.

"I didn't do anything. It kept backing away from me. I swear." Loki retreated from the stall and sat on a hay bale. Nairi continued to calm the horse by slowly putting the bit in its mouth and wrap the bridle around its head.

"He's easily frightened. Come slowly to him and don't do anything stupid. And be careful mounting him." Nairi grabbed his arm and pulled him into the stall then grabbed her horse.

Before the two left, Loki watched Nairi bid farewell to Faolan with a long kiss on the lips. He didn't suppose that was a tradition too? Judging from the way they looked at eachother, he suspected it wasn't.

Once the two were done, they jumped up onto the horses and they rode out of the compound together. The air was freezing but the sun was beating down on them, threatening to turn the cold air to sweltering. Loki felt his nose stinging. His ears went numb.

"You ready?," Nairi asked, "we'll stop a few times to let the horses rest, but then we have to keep going."

Loki nodded at her, excited to taste freedom. Nairi whipped the rains and yelled and her horse took off. Loki followed suit and soon he had caught up to her. They were in a light gallop, but the air that blew against them made them feel like they were going a million miles faster.

As the day dragged on and Nairi and Loki dragged their horses on, it became hot. So hot in fact, that Nairi was not able to touch the hard-packed sand without burning herself. During one of the breaks Nairi and Loki let their horses graze in a tiny patch of grass that grew behind a boulder that had a tiny spring bubbling up from underneath it, no doubt stemmed from the Oasis.

They only stayed there for so long though before they were forced to move on. The only had three more miles to go after the end of the third break.

Nairi and Loki covered the last stretch of ground very quickly, reaching the camp at at least twenty miles an hour.

The entrance to the cave that the rebels slept in was a hundred yard away from them. They were separated by a mass of boulders. It was still probably two o'clock and the two had plenty of time to kill.

"You look tired," Nairi told Loki as he looped the reins around a weird looking rock formation. Nairi didn't bother tying her horse up, it always stayed very close to her.

"I'm very tired," he answered. Nairi looked at him. The bags underneath his eyes had gotten worse and his head was lolling around on his neck like it was stuck there with tape. "Well, we're attacking them at night, probably at one-ish in the morning. How about this, it's a little after two, we'll make our plan at ten tonight. You sleep for four hours and then I wake you up and I sleep for four hours. That sound good?," Nairi asked.

Loki nodded, all he could think about was sleep.

"Thank you," he said before he collapsed to the ground and fell into a wonderfully quiet sleep.


End file.
